Short-range communication techniques, such as Bluetooth, enable wireless communication between, e.g., a mobile telephone and a headset. For this purpose, two profiles are defined according to the Bluetooth specification: HSP (HeadSet Profile) and HFP (HandsFree Profile). These profiles define the interaction between two Bluetooth enabled devices for the communication of voice and data therebetween. HSP as well as HFP define interaction between only two devices at the time.
During communication of audio data between Bluetooth devices, one takes an AG (Audio Gateway) role and the other an HF (HandsFree) role. For the communication, either HFP or HSP is used. The profile to use may be determined by the initiator to the communication. During connections between the HF device and the AG device, the HF device receives audio data as a stream of data, and control data, such as call status and/or phone status data, as data packets.
The Bluetooth technique does not provide for broadcast of audio data to an unlimited number of devices at the same time. The maximum number of connections for broadcasting the same audio data to HF devices an AG device can handle at the time is limited to three.
Therefore, the possibility of broadcasting audio data using a short-range communication technique, which has a limited possibility to serve multiple receiving devices, is relatively scarce. This makes such a short-range communication technique inflexible, as the number of devices that can be served with broadcast audio data is limited. Thus, very few HF devices may be added to an ad-hoc network having an AG as a master device of the network for broadcasting the audio data.